


Better

by Jinmukang



Series: Whumptober 2020 [18]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Dick died but he came back and is traumatized by it, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Panic Attacks, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Triggers, Whumptober 2020, but theres none of that in the actual story, dick has trauma!!! if dc wont admit it then I will give Dick a panic disorder myself!, i love how thats a tag, no.18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27075376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinmukang/pseuds/Jinmukang
Summary: Two little red pills. His heart pounds. His chest aches. He blinks and breathes harshly in and out like the air is thin. It feels thin. He forces his hand towards his mouth, then stops right before the white pill—red pills red pills, it'sAdvil—can touch his lips.He has just a second to realize that oh, he's having a panic attack, before it crashes into him.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: Whumptober 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946413
Comments: 48
Kudos: 226
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> so! this is an interesting one because it's one ive been wanting to write for the longest time. a little story with this one is that i have a really old and sorta abandoned fic called "time goes by and i cant control my mind" where i give dick an anxiety disorder. I didn't necessarily lose interest in it... i just think ive matured. matured in a sense that ive done more research and have experienced my share of anxiety attacks since writing that and i understand the issue a little better. ive been wanting to completely rewrite the entire premise and plot, just haven't had the chance to. thankfully! whumptober is here to give me the chance to at least write something like how the first chapter would be if i DID ever get around to rewriting the story. 
> 
> anyway, hope y'all enjoy!

> I think I lost my mind
> 
> but don't worry about me
> 
> Happens all the time
> 
> In the morning I'll be better
> 
> (OneRepublic - _Better_ )
> 
> -o-o-o-o-

It's a quiet night. One that has Dick wondering if he really needed to stay out as long as he did before returning to his apartment from patrol. Blüdhaven, in a rather out of character manner, decided to give him an easy one tonight. Just run-of-the-mill crime. Muggings. Theft. Sexual harassment. No huge underground schemes or plots being executed within the walls of a warehouse, as unbelievable as it sounds.

Just a good old fashioned patrol with good old fashioned criminals which ended up with Dick returning home to collapse onto his couch, his muscles burning from a good workout instead of a tussle. He spent a solid thirty minutes just going through his phone until his stomach reminded him that he's hungry. He should probably get some food… and get out of his Nightwing suit. He jumps up from the couch and heads towards the kitchen, planning what to make based on the limited amount of ingredients that he has. 

His kitchen always seems to be so empty, and he always forgets to buy more things. But that's okay, he manages. So long as he doesn't starve, he can deal with eggs and toast for breakfast _and_ dinner. 

He takes his gloves off his fingers and sets them down by the sink before he washes his hands. It would be really bad if someone walked in right now, but his blinds are all closed and his door is supplied with Bruce Approved™ locks, so he's really not all that worried. He's too lazy right now to head towards his room and change. 

He goes to the fridge and begins to take out the eggs, humming under his breath. He cracks the eggs into a saucepan, dumps in a handful of cheese, then goes to his cupboard to find he's all out of bread.

And… that's okay. Eggs and cheese with some syrup is satisfying in its own way. 

He returns to his eggs, stirring the meal with a wooden spoon. 

He's about to turn off the heat to the stove when he gets the feeling that something was… wrong. Or maybe, there was always something wrong, and he’s just now noticing it. There's a tense feeling in his ribs that has him taking a deeper inhale to catch his breath. Is he forgetting something? 

Eggs… cheese… no bread… gloves on the counter… oh yeah. He shakes his head and turns off the stove, feeling like an idiot within the walls of his own home. He goes to grab a plate while ignoring the tightness of his ribcage—must just be sore from patrol. That's all. 

Eating dinner isn't as enjoyable as he thought it would be. He keeps having to shift every two or three second to place a hand on his lower ribs, just to make sure he hasn't cracked or strained anything. He presses and pokes, but nothing feels wrong. He takes a deep breath, expanding his lungs as far as they can go in-between bites, but all the good it does is make his heart beat faster. 

His heart… is beating really fast. Pounding. So much so that when he puts his hand on his chest he can almost feel it thumping through his skin. 

He forces himself to finish the eggs before standing up and bringing his plate towards the sink. He looks at his gloves just sitting there, adding to the mess that is his sink. There's dirty dishes, not a whole lot, but just enough that has him looking down at the dish in his hand and sighing. He should clean up. He had time to. 

He doesn't have the energy to all of a sudden.

He places his plate in the sink then grabs his gloves. Rubbing his ribs, he walks towards the medicine cabinet. He really can't think of what would be making them hurt like this unless it was just soreness. He doesn't particularly remember taking any hits to the chest while on patrol tonight, but things happen. He wakes up with bruises he can't remember where he got all the time. 

Maybe he took a hit to the chest and just doesn't recall. It's possible. Adrenalin makes you forget stuff.

He opens the cabinet, now making a conscious effort to keep his breathing even, and looks over the bottles he has stuffed in here. Why does it feel so much like something is wrong? Like he's missing something? He can't think of what would cause him to feel like this so late at night. Maybe it's just the stress of having to wake up tomorrow for work. 

His eyes land on the Advil and he once again makes an attempt to even his breathing. He grabs the bottle, opens it, and taps the little red pills into his hands. Two should be enough. Two is usually enough. A little chest pain doesn't call for three. 

Two little red pills sit in his hand, and for a second he thinks they might be white. 

He blinks. Shakes his head. He returns the bottle to the cabinet and returns to his messy sink in his messy kitchen in his messy apartment to get a glass of water. 

He goes to find a cup, and then stands uselessly as he finds his cabinet empty of clean cups. 

He needs to wash one. 

With tremors running down his hands, he places the _red_ pills down onto the counter and grabs a cup. He pumps soap onto the sponge and quickly rinses the cup out. He fills it with water, grabs the pills, then stops.

Two little red pills. His heart pounds. His chest aches. He blinks and breathes harshly in and out like the air is thin. It feels thin. He forces his hand towards his mouth, then stops right before the white pill—red pills red pills, it's _Advil_ —can touch his lips. 

He has just a second to realize that oh, he's having a panic attack, before it crashes into him.

He slams his hands against the counter, gasping and practically tossing the pills away from him. He lets go of the cup and he's sure it crashes to the ground to shatter, but he can barely concentrate over the tunneling thoughts of _I'm having a panic attack I'm having a panic attack why and I having a panic attack I'm having a panic attack-_

He tries to get a hold of himself, forcing his legs to remain standing even though he wants to collapse. He can't breath. The air is so thin, and his chest hurts so badly. What were the things he was supposed to do to get out of a panic attack?

He can't think. He can taste the powdery residue of pills on his tongue even though he didn't even put any in his mouth yet. 

He gasps for air. His ears ring and he can only stare wide-eyed at nothing. 

In what feels like forever, but was probably only a couple minutes, he slowly begins to get a hold of himself. Slowly, he's able to twitch his fingers and shuffle his feet and claim a gasp of air that isn’t short and impossible to take. 

The moment his brain connects back to the present reality, it's all he can do to not launch into another panic attack at with the realization that he's just had an honest to fucking God _panic attack_ for no reason. 

He brings a hand to his chest and keeps the other flat on the counter, left there to keep him stable as he leans forward. He forces himself to control his breathing. As he does, his eyes slide to the two red pills discarded about a foot from his splayed fingers, both slowly dissolving in little puddles of water left on the counter. 

He vaguely recognizes that he might have been triggered into having a panic attack. _Triggered_ . Which... isn't something he's really had claim to having before. A trigger. Sure, things make him uncomfortable. Sometimes things cause him to get sick to his stomach and leave the room. Sometimes he sees a baseball bat and his heart quickens. Sometimes he sees a woman force herself onto a man and any food in his stomach wants to rise. And sure, taking pills have never been something he's particularly enjoyed doing ever since… ever since. But none of these things have _ever_ caused him to lose control like this before.

And besides, the tight feeling in his chest started _before_ he went to the medicine cabinet. Something else gave him enough anxiety to cause this. The pills just tossed him over the edge. 

Now that he thinks of that… he's not sure if that's good or bad. 

It's one thing to have a trigger. It's another to have a panic attack for absolutely no fucking reason. 

Jesus. His chest still hurts. _Breathing_ still hurts. His feet… he looks down and almost sighs at how ridiculous it is. He's stepped in glass. Water is all over his floor. 

He takes a stiff deep breath. The first one in what feels like forever. He doesn't have any energy to bend down to clean the shattered glass, water, and his own blood from his tiled floor. He wants to go to his bed, climb under the comforter, and blast rain noises until his ribs stop aching and his heart stops pounding. Until he's falling into a dreamless sleep. Until he's unconscious enough to not exist in a world where Lex Luthor stopped his heart, where Two-Face beat him with a baseball bat, where Joker didn't kill Jason, where Catalina never- 

His phone's ringing. Over on the table, where he had finished eating just a few minutes before. 

His spirits instantly lift, and he vaguely realizes it's because he now has something to be distracted by. He pushes himself from the counter and carefully steps over the glass and water, walking on the sides of his feet to avoid treading on more glass or spreading any blood for him to clean up later, and grabs his phone. He places it to his ear without even looking at the caller ID.

"Yeah?" he asks, breathless. 

" _Dick! I'm glad you're still up_ -" Tim's voice. Tim. Timmy. Timmy who's alive and healthy sans spleen. Timmy who's upset with Dick because he gave Damian Robin. Timmy who's smarter than Dick and gets frustrated when Dick doesn't understand. Timmy who never thinks Dick's on his side Timmy who _hates_ Dick Timmy who- stop. Stop. None of that is true. Stop. " _Listen, you remember Jula Zarina? The lady who worked at the bank? I was pulling up her files, and it turns out she might have connections to one of the robbers and I was thinking_ -"

Dick slowly lowers himself into the chair of his dining table. He lets out a breath and places his elbows on the table. Yeah. Yeah he remembers Jula. She’s the broker at the bank Dick and Tim stopped from being shot up about a week ago. 

He lets out a breath. His chest still hurts, but he doesn't feel on the brink of another panic attack any more. 

"- _so I was wondering what your thoughts are about it_?"

And Dick wasn't listening. Or he _was_ . But for some reason, no words are really sticking with him. He's tired. Everything hurts. He has what feels like the beginnings of a migraine but he doesn't trust himself to even _look_ at the medicine cabinet at the moment. 

"I'm sorry, Tim," Dick says, and his voice sounds so fake. He clears his throat. "I missed what you were saying… you think you can say it again?"

It's silent on the other side of the line, and for a moment Dick almost thinks Tim hung up or something. He wouldn’t blame him. But then, there's the sound of bedsheets shifting on the other side of the line. His lips almost twitch upwards at the sound. Of course Tim was in bed, pulling up files on random people, instead of sleeping. 

" _Dick…_ " Tim starts, and why does Dick get the feeling he's not going to like what's said next? " _Are you okay? You sound weird_."

Like he's just come off from some freak panic attack even though the night was good and nothing warranted one in the first place? Dick closes his eyes and wills his voice sound normal. "It's nothing, Tim. I'm just… tired."

" _Please don't lie to me,_ " Tim says, and Dick instantly knows he's failed at playing normal. " _Your tired voice is different. You sound_ …"

"Panicked?" Dick offers, more like a joke, but he realizes his mistake the second Tim sucks in a sharp breath. "Tim really, I'm-"

" _If you say you're fine, I'm stealing the Batjet to come over and smack you_ ." Dick winces, because Tim sounds serious. " _Are you hurt? What happened_?"

Dick opens his mouth, but no words come out. His eyes sting suddenly, and he's hit with the intense need to just _cry_ . He doesn't even know what about. He doesn't want to cry, especially if it's about _nothing_. He swallows. "It's nothing… I just… I just had a little… little panic attack I guess. Something, um, triggered one."

" _Do you... Do you want to talk about it? Should I get Br-_ " 

_I trained you to_ **_live_ ** _, and I watched you_ **_die_ ** _._

"No," Dick says sharply. More sharply that he meant to. The pain in his chest intensifies suddenly, and for a terrifying moment he almost thinks he's about to launch into yet another attack. The thought of Bruce knowing that Dick was still upset about Crime Syndicate raised his anxiety levels almost to a ten. Dick shouldn't still be hung up on that… it's not like he _really_ died. "No… I just… Tim I'm really fine. This was just a random thing. I don't get attacks like these normally. I just need to go to bed and I'll be better in the morning."

" _Panic attacks aren't usually random-_ " Tim begins but Dick cuts him off. 

"Really, Tim, I'm already feeling better. How about you call me tomorrow and we can talk about Jula? I really should go to bed. And you should too."

" _I… okay… if you're sure-_?"

"I'm sure."

It takes just a moment to finally say goodnight to Tim, but it feels like hours. He sets his phone down and sits there. Breathing. 

He's fine. This is all okay. Dick Grayson gets panic attacks sometimes. This isn't new.

He'll get over this. 

He always does. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! 
> 
> so... i need you to do something... if its not too much to ask... but a comment?? that would be nice. really nice actually. cuz, like, i get motivation from that stuff. good cush, ya know?
> 
> anyway. thanks.
> 
> -moon walks away-


End file.
